The Professors House
that was as heavy as lead and just about as cold,
and two suits of clothes. That conscienceless trader
worked off on me a clawhammer coat he must have
had in stock for twenty years. He easily persuaded
Roddy that it was the proper thing for dress occasions. I think Roddy expected that I would be received by ambassadors—perhaps I did.
Roddy drew six hundred dollars out of the bank to stake me, and bought my ticket and Pullman through to Washington. He went to the station with me the morning I left, and a hard handshake was good-bye.
For a long while after my train pulled out, I could see our mesa bulking up blue on the skyline. I hated to leave it, but I reflected that it had taken care of itself without me for a good many hundred years. When I saw it again, I told myself, I would have done my duty by it; I would bring back with me men who would understand it, who would appreciate it and dig out all its secrets.
—224—
